"Letter: 200+ Organizations Call on Governments to Address UAE Human Rights Abuses Ahead of COP28 Climate Negotiations"

...We write as a global network of organizations with grave human rights concerns regarding the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), host of the 2023 COP28 climate negotiations. We support the concerns expressed by climate justice movements that allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless,  represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process...

At COP28 and beyond, we reiterate our call that there can be no climate justice without human rights, and there can be no human rights without climate justice...

As a global network of civil society organizations, we the undersigned urge you to take the following immediate steps to address the UAE’s ongoing human rights crisis and to ensure that COP28 climate negotiations produce the ambitious commitments necessary to address global climate change:

1.Demand that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful state surveillance that violates international human rights law and standards...

The UAE is a surveillance state that uses its technology to spy on millions of people both inside and outside its borders... UAE must also cease the use of spyware and surveillance technologies to repress peaceful critics and journalists, stop censoring and controlling Internet usage and communication networks, and allow full access to all encrypted messenger apps and virtual private networks (VPNs).

2. Call on the UAE to release all prisoners of conscience.

The rulers of the UAE have unjustly imprisoned numerous Emirati human rights defenders, civil society activists, and political dissidents...

3. Demand action on UAE violations of women’s rights.

COP28 attendees must refuse to meet with UAE officials who have committed violence against women, such as Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (kidnapping of his adult daughters and spousal abuse) and UAE Minister of “Tolerance” Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan (accused of rape)...

4. Condemn UAE violations of LGBTQI+ rights.

5. Call for workers’ rights reforms and reparations for forced labor.

The UAE monarchy must pay reparations to all migrant workers who built or have worked at the site of the COP28 facilities (Expo City Dubai) under conditions of abuse and forced labor...

6. Urge the UAE to stop supporting human rights violators in Yemen and across the Middle East and North Africa.

7. Publicly repudiate UAE greenwashing and fossil fuel hypocrisy:

The UAE must end its greenwashing campaign, abandon its plans to dramatically increase state oil and gas production, and rectify the profound conflict of interest created by UAE state oil company chief executive Sultan al-Jaber also serving as president of the COP28 climate negotiations...

APPENDIX:  Additional Information on UAE Human Rights Violations and Climate Concerns

1.Demand that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful state surveillance that violates international human rights law and standards...

As documented by Amnesty International and Citizen Lab, the UAE has a long record of spying on human rights defenders, including imprisoned human rights advocate Ahmed Mansoor. Two separate Reuters news reports document how the UAE, with the support of hired U.S. intelligence operatives, spied on journalists, activists, and political leaders worldwide, including Yemeni Nobel Peace laureate Tawokkol Karman...

5. Call for workers’ rights reforms and reparations for forced labor.

We urge you to call on the UAE monarchy to:  

• Pay reparations to all migrant workers who built or have worked at the site of the COP28 facilities under conditions of abuse and forced labor.
• Commit to protecting migrant workers from exposure to extreme heat, which can lead to potentially fatal injuries and illnesses.
• Lift the ban on independent labor unions and allow all workers in the UAE to organize and advocate for their needs.
• Abolish the Kafala system of labor sponsorship, which traps many migrant and foreign workers in systems of human trafficking, forced labor, and other abuses.
• End all sex trafficking and conditions of sexual slavery in Dubai...

The very site where COP28 will be held was built and has been staffed by workers who were abused and subjected to forced labor. The COP28 climate negotiations will occur in Expo City Dubai, a site that was originally built for the UAE Dubai Expo 2020. As documented by labor rights organization Equidem during the time of Expo 2020, “migrant workers engaged on projects at Expo 2020 Dubai across a range of sectors — from hospitality and retail to construction and security — are being subjected to forced labour practices.” More than 40,000 workers were employed in the Expo City Dubai construction process, and thousands of additional migrant workers have performed other forms of work. The “majority of Expo 2020 Dubai workers interviewed faced forced labour practices.” Without proper investigation and reparations for these workers, COP28 climate negotiations will occur on the backs of abused workers...